through a long hallway with a broken light 16/?
Through a Long Hallway with a Broken Light Chapter 16/?
Author: Chrys
A birthday fic for yourxpridex
Characters/Pairings: Sam/Elias, Dean, Jane
Rating: NC17
Genre: AU
Word Count: 3035
Summary: North Dakota is a cold brutal place in the winter. Sam and Dean head there to find out what is slaughtering young women in their cars. Sam doesn't expect to meet the love of his life; Dean doesn't expect to find out his baby brother is gay, but a lot of things happen in a lifetime that one doesn’t expect. Sometimes dealing with those things is scarier than finding out there really is a monster under the bed.
Disclaimer: Everything Kripke owns is his. The rest is mine. Please don’t claim our stuff. Thanks.
Warnings: This story is an AU SPN and was written in the spirit of Season One. Please note that violence, and much other stuff in the tradition of Kripke and Co. are contained within this story. If you watch Supernatural you can read this fic, the violence and gore won't get worse than that. And Dude...If you don’t watch it, why would you want to read? .
Spoilers: Through season 2 and possibly for Sam's character throughout all aired episodes.
Thanks to garvaldmains and kes1807 for reading and cheering, I'm not sure I could do it without you guys.
Credit: Title happily ripped off from the very awesome Thriving Ivory. Thanks guys!
A/N: I made up the history of the Red River Valley.
Master Post
Sam’s feet crunched on the snow as he rushed forward. He slipped into the rickety old cabin through the back door; it hung ajar, blowing in the wind. It slammed against the wall with each gust with a bang that covered any noise he made. He slipped inside; his hopes of going unnoticed while he got his bearings were high, but unrealized. The interior was packed with ghosts; they shimmered with an ethereal light that hadn’t been visible form outside, and turned to face him as soon as he came in the door. He skidded to a stop and stared, gun raised, at the mass of denim and flannel clad spirits he faced. They looked at him and began to laugh; the sound grated like fingernails on a chalk board and made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Sam had something for them - he pulled the trigger, and they stopped laughing as their manifestations blew apart.
Sam’s grin was wicked. Thanks to Jane, he knew salt rounds weren’t enough to face down this group of ghosts. Loaded with the iron shot he and Dean normally reserved for heavier hitters, Sam had bet his life that they couldn’t stand up to that. The supernatural and iron just didn’t mix. He blasted his way into the room, his eyes constantly scanning to ensure he didn’t accidently fill Elias with a round of shot. Dilapidated cabinets lined the wall to his right, ahead in a corner stood a rusty iron stove; the front grate hung askew and piled next to it on top of an old firewood box were a bunch of blankets that made him think of Danny. Sam moved deeper into the room, it got darker with every blast of his gun, he was thinning out the ghosts, but they weren’t running. They flickered out of his way, but if he didn’t fill them with iron, they didn’t leave and someone was still laughing. His jaw tight Sam moved forward. The steady sound of the shotgun blasts continued with barely a pause to mark when he had to reload.
The cabin was divided into two rooms and when he reached the doorway to the next room Sam stopped his mind unable to process the horror of what he was seeing, the gun ceased to fire and he gripped the doorframe in an effort to keep himself off the floor. Black magic filled the air, the taint as thick and dark as anything Sam had ever encountered. Elias lay on the floor, naked, in the middle of a pentagram encircled with runes Sam had never seen before and couldn’t identify. Arms outstretched, his hands were nailed to the floor, his legs spread eagle and held by some means that Sam’s horrified gaze couldn’t see. He was so deathly pale, his skin tinged slightly blue that if it hadn’t been for the fact that his head was thrown back, his mouth open in a silent scream that corded his neck, Sam would have thought he was dead.
A figure clad in black robes, its face lost in the black shadow of a hood stood, over Elias, his arms outstretched. This was source of the black magic and to Sam’s disbelief, another ghost. He flickered with the effort of performing the ritual and maintaining his form. Winchell stood at the thing’s side; he met Sam’s eyes and laughed. His scarred face was contorted with his amusement. The other ghosts filling the room, all more contemporary than the ones haunting the he had already faced, turned towards Sam. They were all laughing at him.
“Fuck you,” Sam growled. The gun came up and he opened fire. The ghosts blew apart until he and the witch were the only ones left standing over Elias.
“Too late.” the words were uttered without feeling and for a heartbeat Sam couldn’t move. The ghost cackled the screeching sound filled the room. “His power is ours.” Under Sam’s horrified gaze fissures began to open in Elias’ skin and his blood began to run.
“NO!” Sam brought up his shotgun and fired, the ghost flickered and wavered but held, Elias’ screams filled the air tangled with the laughter of the witch like an obscene parody of an opera. The fissures in Elias’ skin continued to open; they followed some unknown map over his body, beginning at his hands and feet spreading over his arms and legs towards his chest. “I said NO!” Sam’s left hand came up and in it he held the solid iron grate from the stove in the other room. “Eat this you bastard!” he stepped into pentagram, straddling Elias and swung the grating at the hooded head of the black figure tormenting him. The ghost tried to jerk away, and in pulling back his concentration faltered, his robes flickered and Sam found himself staring into the startlingly blue eyes of a blond haired youth little older than himself. He barely had time to register the shock before the grate cut through the manifestation and tore it to shreds. The howling laughter stopped.
The screams did not.
~*~
“There are two cemeteries.” Jane told Dean as he eased the Impala back on the road, “Opposite sides of town.” Dean frowned at her and glared out the windshield at the snow. Every time he thought they’d caught a break on this job, something happened to make it twice as hard. He didn’t know how a town as small as Daffodil had enough dead people to warrant two cemeteries. Though thinking about the way churches liked to keep people around even dead, Dean decided he should be thankful there were only two and not 15 scattered all over the country side. He stopped at a crossroads leading into town and let the Impala idle. He had no doubt that if he chose one way he was going to be wrong and forced to backtrack.
Dean peered out into the snow, his eyes searching, though he knew that he wouldn’t see a sign of Kelli until she was in the car with them. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel and hummed off key. He bit his lip and did his best to curb his impatience. This was better than trying to figure out where to go on his own. It was. Jane sat small and still on her side of the car. Dean thought she might finally be about done with the idea of hunting, but when he glanced over at her she looked determined and he revised his opinion. She just had better nerves than he did, it was a woman thing. They were better at waiting then men. He needed action and the feeling that he was going to lose Sam if he didn’t get moving was impossible to subdue. Lose Sam or lose Elias? Was there any difference? The question haunted him.
“Go left,” Kelli’s voice appeared before she did. She manifested in the seat between them. Jane jumped, but Dean put the car in gear and was turning before she had decided what dress to wear. “The cemetery is about 5 miles down on the left.” Jane told him, “It’s the bigger one.” Dean glanced at Kelli.
“Tell me we don’t have to hunt for the grave,” He demanded risking increasing their speed slightly, though snow still piled on the windshield between blade swipes.
“You won’t,” she said, “There is a Winchell mausoleum, but you aren’t going to like it.” The snow began to fall heavier and Dean slowed the car back to its original crawl.
“I don’t like anything about this,” he growled, “what the fuck is wrong with the mausoleum?” Kelli flickered; she was still having trouble keeping shape.
“The Winchell’s are cremated.” She said, “All of them.” Dean glared at her and almost ran off the side of the road. He struggled to keep control while his mind worked furiously. All cremated? Even Mike Winchell now, he and Sam had seen to that.
“They can’t all be cremated.” Dean told her stubbornly, “Sam said the girl was buried with the necklace.” Jane shook her head, she looked discouraged. She couldn’t face him and turned away.
“He wasn’t sure Dean, remember?” She said staring out the passenger window into the thickly falling snow, “He was certain about the necklace and that it has to be destroyed but he wasn’t sure about where the necklace was. If it’s not buried with her, what are we going to do?”
“Find it.” Dean said his expression grim as he fought to keep the impala from fishtailing when he turned into the snowy drive of the cemetery.
~*~
Sam dropped to his knees over Elias, trying to figure out why he was still screaming. The fissures in his skin continued to move up his arms and legs. The witch was gone but his spell was unbroken. Sam dropped his shotgun and grabbed the knife out of its sheath, the steel blade bit deep into the floor, scarring the ancient wood and tearing it out in chunks as Sam hacked at it. The circle broken Elias’ body relaxed, his screams dwindled to groans of pain and the progress of the fissures in his skin ceased. Blood still seeped from his wounds but they were shallow and there was little threat of his bleeding out from them. The spell disrupted Sam sat up, he was straddle of Elias’ hips. He stared down at Elias and rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to decide what to do first.
Elias shifted his legs and Sam realized that they were free from whatever means the ghosts had used to restrain him. His hands though, Sam bit his lip and studied the broad head of the nail that pinned Elias’ left hand to the wooden floor. Its twin held his right. While he watched, Elias began to tug against them. Sam grabbed his hands and held them still. Elias’ body was cold under him and he didn’t open his eyes.
“They aren’t deep. Help me.” Elias begged, “Please Sam, we have to hurry.” Sam’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed but he grabbed Elias’ hand and when Elias pulled against the nail again Sam pulled with him. Skin tore and bone grated but the nail pulled free form the floor. Sam grabbed the head to pull it from his hand, but Elias stopped him.
“Not yet, the other one, hurry,” His voice was raw from screaming and he was so cold that he’d stopped trembling. Sam left the nail embedded in his palm and helped free the other hand. Elias lay still under him, unable to move, panting with the exertion of freeing himself. Sam kept an iron grip on his emotions. Dean and the impala were gone, sent off by him on what might be wild goose hunt. He didn’t see Elias’ clothes and didn’t know what he was going to do. Elias’ fingers slid under the cuff of Sam’s parka. His touch was like ice against Sam’s skin but the inevitable twining of their emotions was immediate.
Elias was weak and fading, if Sam didn’t think of something he was going to die. Elias wrapped his hand around Sam’s wrist, clinging and desperate for warmth. His desperation paired with Sam’s as Sam struggled to keep perspective and figure out what to do. He remembered the pile of blankets in the other room and hope blossomed in his chest. He felt a hesitant echo of the emotion run through Elias. Elias didn’t know what Sam had thought of but he trusted him. Elias clung to Sam as he struggled to his feet and staggered into the other room Elias in his arms. He laid Elias on the floor and grabbed a blanket. He tried to roll Elias in it but the other man resisted him. Elias forced himself to his hands and knees oblivious to the nails still in his hands.
“They’ll be back,” he said staring up at Sam, “They won’t be surprised this time, you can’t fight them all. That’s how they come, all at once. All at once. And salt will not be enough.” His head dropped and his voice was so low that Sam almost didn’t make out what he said.
“What did you use?” Elias was asking, “You scattered them…what?” Sam remembered he’d left his gun in the other room.
“Lead shot, instead of salt,” he told Elias whose head came up, his eyes flashed.
“Lead. Circles. lead and then salt. Salt inside lead, don’t mix them. Hurry Sam, hurry!” Elias dropped to the floor and didn’t protest the blanket Sam threw over him. He eyelids heavy he fought off sleep as he watched Sam break open the shot and pour a narrow circle of lead around them, in encompassed the stove as well as the two of them. Sam pulled the duffel off his back and dropped it to the floor. It banged and clanked, he pulled a sizable bag of salt out of it and began the second line inside the first, careful that the two did not meet.
There were some flickers in the room, the first hints that the ghosts were beginning to recover. Elias’ breath caught but he resisted rushing Sam and risking mistake and then the circles were done. Sam breathed a sigh of relief and stepped out of their protection to recover his shotgun. Back in the circle he found Elias up on his knees painstakingly carving ruins in the floor just inside the salt ring with a nail he’d pulled from one of his hands and his blood. Sam dropped the gun with a clatter.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded. Elias ignored him head down he measured the distance to the next rune and began etching it out, blood ran down his fingers from the hole in his palm, filling the grooves. His limbs shook with the effort it took to remain up right as he continued around the circle. More shapes flickered in the room, as Elias struggled to finish what he was doing. Sam picked up his shotgun, torn between making Elias stop and being ready in case the double circle didn’t hold against the ghosts.
“You can’t shoot,” Elias muttered without looking up, “whatever you do, do not break the circle.” Sam frowned glaring out into the room where a few ghosts had managed to take shape and hold it. He wasn’t sure what Elias meant; how was he breaking the circle if the salt and lead lines remained undisturbed. He aimed the gun determined not to let them regroup. “DON’T” Elias croaked in his ruined voice and Sam froze. Winchell materialized, knife in hand and started forward, the look on his face promised they were not going to like what happened when he got to them. The strongest were coming back first, though they were the last ones he’d shot. So far there was no sign of the witch. Elias began muttering under his breath. At first Sam thought it was an incantation but then he made out what Elias was saying. “Safe. I’ll keep you safe if it kills me.” Winchell was at the edge of the lead circle when it flared red, the salt flashed blue and for a brief moment the force field Elias had raised was visible, a glaring purple light and then it was gone, but Winchell stopped his face contorted in fury.
“He’s ours!” Winchell’s enraged scream shook the foundations of the house, but he came no closer. Sam licked his lips nervously and turned away. He pushed the blankets off the large wood box. There wasn’t any wood, but there was plenty of paper he could use for tender. Sam shoved the paper into the stove and then tore the box intended to hold firewood apart with his bare hands. Lacking logs it would fill the role of fire wood; he fed it into the stove on top of the paper. He dug matches out of his duffle. He didn’t know when the stove had been used last; there was a chance that Danny and his friend used it when they came out but it didn’t matter. Sam didn’t care if the flue was blocked, smoke would be welcome if it was accompanied by heat. He lit the fire, and made a next of blankets on the floor. Sam turned to where Elias lay on the bare floorboards, eyes closed. Sam couldn’t tell by looking if he was still alive.
Heart in his throat he gathered Elias up and settled onto the blankets with him. He pulled the others around them, and huddled there waiting for some sign of life from Elias. There was nothing, Elias was so cold his skin was blue-white and his blood had stopped flowing from his wounds. He was pliant in Sam’s arms but unresponsive, without any sign of life. Sam couldn’t tell if he was breathing. He stripped off his gloves to feel for a pulse, and breathed a sigh of relief when he found it. Thready and weak, but there.
Elias was still alive but Sam knew if he didn’t do something fast, the cold was going to kill him. Unable to think of anything else, he stripped off his parka and tossed it aside. He slipped out of his shirts and pulled Elias close against him. It was so cold Sam shuddered; he trembled so hard it was painful but he held Elias tighter and pulled the blankets around them and over their heads. He stopped watching the ghosts. They’d get in, or they wouldn’t but whatever happened they were wrong about one thing.
“Mine,” he whispered into Elias’ frozen ear. He tried desperately to ignore the fact that even though Elias was wrapped naked in his arms, he remained alone in his head and that barely a breath stirred against his skin where he’d tucked Elias’ face against his neck. “Mine.”
“Just don’t break the circle,” Elias’ voice was broken, less than a breath against Sam’s throat, “saved you.” He sighed and slipped away.
Chapter 17